The Tropical Shirt ( humour )

Time for a bit of (I hope) levity.

It's a hot night as I write this, and I am enjoying a 500 ml can of Navigator beer. I seldom drink, but tonight I decided to indulge myself. It's imported from Holland, and I do believe they call it " Navigator" because that is what one needs after having a couple of them.

With that in mind, let me continue with a true story.

Let me tell you all about a "wardrobe malfunction" that happened to me last year. It was in at the start of summer, and I felt the compulsion to buy myself a tropical shirt.

That's the great thing about compulsions, they defy all logic.

You know, those Hawaiian style of shirts ? The type you see on rich wrinkled elderly tourists walking around Southern tourist destinations? Yeah, that type.

I had seen it in the mall a few times, and I ( for some strange reason )imagined that it might look really good coupled with a pair of jeans, and possibly a leather jacket. Each time I walked by, it called my name.

Actually...it screamed it.

That store had a sale a week or so later, and I had my opportunity. I should have realized something was wrong when the salesgirl started giggling when she placed it into the bag. I left the store quite a happy man and took the short walk home to proudly wear it, and admire my wise purchase. I got home, and ( with ZZ Top's " Sharp Dressed Man" playing in my head) pulled it out of the bag and put it on - and walked into my bathroom to admire my bold decision to make a rather daring fashion statement.

Cue music...

lookin' sharp and lookin' for love.
They come runnin' just as fast as they can
coz every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.

Looking into that mirror, I instantly started to have some serious doubts. ZZ Top stopped playing. Those bright colours had suddenly revealed some strange hidden things I had not noticed before - the scales had dropped from my eyes. It was like a fabric Rorschach Inkblot Test come to life.

Let me describe it to you:

It was dark grey, with large orange tropical orchards, and less than subtle black silhouettes of naked women in various pin-up poses - and skulls are at the center of those large bright orange flowers...

(Don't jump me on the naked women/skull thing, it is really subliminal and I only noticed it when I got home. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)

I cast my doubts aside, and the next morning I wore it while I chatted on webcam with my l'il sis. Ely saw it as I came on her screen, and was unable to type for about five minutes because of her tears/howls of laughter.

And...she couldn't breath for a short while. I thought that she was having a heart attack, or possibly even a stroke, as I watched her on my computer monitor writhing in convulsions.

This is how she described it in a thread on the website we are both moderators on.

Take it away Ely ! :

Omg....
I will never forget that day.
C1 on webcam with the ugliest shirt you can imagine and with a proud face saying: "I just got this shirt, do you like it? I think it rocks"

First I tried to figure out how to tell the truth without hurting his feelings... then I thought "screw it"... this is the worst I have ever seen.

Doh, little did I know he had bought it just for this....

Best laugh I had for ages.

( On a related note, one night I walked into work proudly wearing a bandana, an earring, and a black sleeveless T-shirt with jeans. My co-worker, an exceptionally good friend of mine, looked over and said with perfect timing "All you are missing is the parrot..." These are the type of people that one should treasure as friends.)

I wore that shirt outside later that same day, and blind people turned their head as I passed by. This shirt is louder than any car stereo on the planet. The only possible use for it would be if lost in an isolated area of the Earth as even someone flying at ten thousand feet altitude could not help but notice it. Should some archaeologist one thousand years from now discover it, he/she would immediately assume that man in the early twenty-first century had lost his ability to see. There could be no other academic conclusion based on the horrific polyester proof laid out there before him.

Even Al Pacino could not have gotten away with wearing that shirt in "Scarface."

So... it now sits in my closet (lighting it up like a nite light) as it has from that very day, as a subtle warning to the dangers of dressing myself.

Every time I even accidently glance at it, I can still hear Ely's laughter in much the same way you hear the ocean in a seashell when you hold it up to your ear.